UW-Madison School of Education - Alumni News

School of Education Alumni News

We like to both share what our alumni are up to and share information that may be of interest to our alumni. Please use our online form to send in your news for posting here, in our other alumni publications, and on our "For Alumni" website.

UW-Madison alumnus Joel Nellis is the co-author of a new book titled, "Walk-On This Way: The Ongoing Legacy of the Wisconsin Football Walk-On Tradition." Nellis earned a bachelor’s degree in 2006 from the Department of Kinesiology’s Physical Education Teacher Education program. Now he is in his 11th year as a physical education teacher in the Elmbrook School district. The book highlights the accomplishments and contributions made by Badger walk-on players through first person accounts and over 100 interviews with former players and coaches.

UW-Madison alumnus Mark Gillen has been named the recipient of the 2016-17 Dr. Keith G. Wurtz Award for Teaching Excellence at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. The Wurtz Award "recognizes outstanding and innovative teachers who have made exceptional contributions to the university and to the community." Recipients have displayed innovative and collaborative techniques in both teaching and learning. Gillen received his bachelor's degree in elementary education from UW-Madison's School of Education in 1980.

UW-Madison professor Lesley Bartlett and alumna Fran Vavrus appeared on the weekly podcast “FreshEd with Will Brehm” to talk about a book they have co-authored that is due to be released later this year. In this podcast episode, Bartlett and Vavrus discuss the ideas from their upcoming book titled “Rethinking Case Study Research: A Comparative Approach.” These topics include the re-imagining of traditional case study techniques to accommodate factors such as culture, context, space, place and comparison.

During Fall 2016, UW-Madison’s School of Education will be participating in the Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP) survey. This program survey explores the lives of arts alumni nationwide. The School of Education arts departments represented in the survey will be Art, Dance, and Theatre and Drama. If you are an arts alumni from one of these departments, keep an eye on your email in early October for communication from SNAAP regarding the survey. Participants in the survey will have access to a site where they can see how their experience compares with those of other arts graduates from across North America.

The education research of UW-Madison alumna Maria Lewis is highlighted in a recent news story posted to Penn State University’s website. The article begins: “Maria Lewis is working collaboratively with the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s Office for Safe Schools on issues of how to better accommodate transgender youth within the state’s school districts, issues that Lewis believes can be solved not only through research but by revisiting the purpose of an educator." Lewis is an assistant professor of education in Penn State’s College of Education. She earned her Ph.D. from UW-Madison's Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis in 2014.

WisconsinEye produced a “Morning Minute” video highlighting a recent talk delivered by UW-Madison alumna Tashia Morgridge at the 2016 Wisconsin Public Education Network Summer Summit. The summit was held Aug. 23 in Morgridge’s hometown of Wauwatosa, Wis. Morgridge is a member of the School of Education’s Board of Visitors. She earned her bachelor's degree from the School of Education in 1955.

UW-Madison alumna Kristina Navarro (Ph.D. 2012, ELPA) is an assistant professor at UW-Whitewater, where she heads up the Warhawk Leadership Academy. This project was recognized with the 2016 Model Practice Award for Student-Athlete Development by the National Association of Academic Advisors for Athletics (N4A). MERIT video producer Eric Rajala recently put together a report showcasing Navarro’s work with the Warhawk Leadership Academy. This video also includes thoughts from LaMar “Soup” Campbell –- who played football for the Badgers in the mid-1990s before having a career in the NFL. Campbell is helping some of the UW-Whitewater student-athletes.

Edward Holmes will be the Overture Center for the Arts’ new director of diversity and inclusion, the performing arts center announced in a news release last week. Holmes is a member of the UW-Madison School of Education’s Board of Visitors. A native of Washington, D.C., Holmes came to UW-Madison, where he completed undergraduate degrees in English and political science, a master’s in social work and a Ph.D. from the School of Education’s Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis.

UW-Madison School of Education alumnae Paula Kluth and Julie Causton are co-authors of a new book titled, “30 Days to the Co-Taught Classroom.” A web page promoting the book explains how Kluth and Causton will “introduce you to the information, competencies and habits you will need to become a great co-teaching partner” in just 30 days. Kluth earned both a bachelor’s (1992) and doctorate (1998) in special education from the School of Education, while Causton received a bachelor’s (1995), master’s (1999) and Ph.D. (2003) in special education from UW-Madison.

In the fast-growing and job-rich disciplines of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, improving instruction at the college level is critical to keeping students engaged in these fields. But filling in bubbles on institutionalized end-of-term teacher evaluation questionnaires, a standard practice at many large research universities, often fails to produce timely and meaningful data for improving instruction, according to a new study co-authored by Oregon State University's Bouwma-Gearhart and UW-Madison's Matthew Hora. Bouwma-Gearhart also is an alumna of UW-Madison's School of Education.

Several alumni of UW-Madison's School of Education recently presented research as part of a group panel at the XVI World Congress of Comparative Education Societies, held Aug. 22-26 in Beijing, China. Each of those presenting from UW-Madison as part of the group panel, “Global Struggles for Critical Democratic Education,” earned doctorates from the School of Education’s No. 1-ranked Department of Curriculum and Instruction.

UW-Madison alumnus Terrance Green recently authored a commentary for Time magazine’s website that’s headlined, “5 Questions Every Parent Should Ask at Back-to-School Night.” Green earned his Ph.D. from the School of Education's Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis in 2013. Today, he is an assistant professor of educational administration at the University of Texas at Austin.

A Madison maker of educational games has just published Diffission, a visual game to teach fractions to middle schoolers without the pain of the traditional "skill and drill." The software will generate up to one billion shapes, and users will have to build fractions from them, says Filament Games CEO Dan White, an alumnus of UW-Madison's School of Education. Diffission joins 13 other games in Filament's "library." The company sells individual games on the web, but its marketing strategy focuses on licensing the library of games to schools or school districts.

Nine educational video games developed in an unusual collaboration between middle school science teachers and expert game developers have been released nationally by Field Day lab, a project of UW-Madison's Wisconsin Institute for Discovery. The games cover earthquakes, the carbon cycle and the water cycle, among other topics chosen by the teachers during a January workshop on campus. "The main thing we learned was that this collaboration with teachers was even possible," says David Gagnon, director of Field Day and an alumnus of UW-Madison’s School of Education.

Congratulations to ​UW-Madison alumna Alev Kelter for a solid showing at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio. Kelter received her BFA from the School of Education's Art Department in 2015. Kelter and her teammates on the United States Women's Rugby Sevens team defeated France 19-5 to finish fifth at the Summer Games. A member of the Badgers' NCAA champion women's hockey team in 2011, Kelter ended the six-game Olympic tournament at Deodoro Stadium with a team-high five tries.

UW-Madison alumna Sabrina Hilton was selected to be a 2017 Emerging Leader for the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA). According to the AOTA website, the "Emerging Leaders Development Program recognizes and invests in students and practitioners who have demonstrated dedication and commitment, through service to the profession, at the start of their career." Hilton received her master of science degree from UW-Madison’s Occupational Therapy Program earlier this year. This program is housed within the School of Education’s Department of Kinesiology.

The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) awarded UW-Madison alumnus Rod Dishman a prestigious 2016 Citation Award at its annual meeting in Boston. This award is one of ACSM's most prestigious, and it recognizes individuals who have made “outstanding contributions to the fields of sports medicine and/or exercise science.” Dishman received a master’s degree from the School of Education’s Department of Kinesiology in 1975 and earned a Ph.D. from that same department in 1978,

Madison365.com recently posted a news article about the Xicanx Institute for Education and Self-Determination, which is the brainchild of UW-Madison’s Jorge F. Rodriguez, a doctoral candidate with the School of Education’s No. 1-ranked Department of Curriculum and Instruction. Rodriguez, who also holds a master’s degree from the School of Education's Department of Counseling Psychology, is the instructor and author of the curriculum used within the institute at Madison East High School. UW-Madison School of Education Dean Diana Hess was among the people invited by Rodriguez to visit the Xicanx Institute for Education and Self-Determination (XIES).